The Fiji coup leader George Speight was arrested yesterday on suspicion of arms offences and threats to the president, the military said, adding that an earlier amnesty offer had yet to take effect.
Speight may be charged with treason, Fiji military spokesman Lt Col Filipo Tarakinikini said.
Rebels loyal to Speight later seized an Air Fiji twin-otter aircraft, state-owned Fiji Broadcasting Commission said.
The aircraft and the pilot, but no passengers, were being held at Savusavu on the island of Vanua Levu north of here.
The motive for the seizure was not immediately clear but the military confirmed widespread actions by rebels were taking place across the country.
Mr Speight, who provoked a political crisis when he stormed parliament last May, taking most of the cabinet hostage, was stopped at a bridge checkpoint in Kolabu, near the capital, Suva. "There's a number of allegations that were being brought to us about the carriage of arms in and around Suva by George Speight and his bodyguards and about threats to the head of state," Lt-Col Tarakinikini said.
He said five warning shots were fired before Mr Speight was arrested along with his legal adviser, Mr Tevita Bukaru, media adviser Mr Joe Nata, and bodyguard, Mr Ireli Cakau. He said Mr Speight and his supporters would be held inside the Queen Elizabeth military barracks on a hilltop overlooking Suva.
Lt-Col Tarakinikini said an amnesty granted to Mr Speight as part of the deal to secure the release of the hostages was to come into effect only when all his weapons had been returned. A total of 18 M-16s and pistols taken from military arsenals had still not been handed back, so the amnesty did not yet apply, he said in a statement.
The military earlier deployed troops across the racially split nation, fearing renewed civil unrest after a new government and possibly a new prime minister is named today. Mr Speight had threatened new unrest if his nationalist candidate for prime minister, 60-year-old diplomat Mr Adi Samanunu Cakobau, was not accepted in place of the military-backed caretaker prime minister, Mr Laisenia Qarase.
"The people could react," Mr Speight remarked earlier yesterday at a school in Kolabu, where about 100 of his supporters had gathered.
Mr Speight and his gunmen stormed parliament on May 19th in the name of indigenous Fijian rights. The group held Mr Mahendra Chaudhry, Fiji's first ethnic Indian prime minister, and most of his cabinet hostage for 56 days before releasing them on July 13th.
Mr Speight won widespread support among Fijian nationalists in his attempt to limit the political power of Fiji's Indians, who make up 44 per cent of the 800,000 population.